A Chicken's Guide to Talking Turkey with Your Kids about Sex ...

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Chapter 1: It’s a Tough Job, but Someone Has to Do Itit easier? What type of things built a wall between you and your parents?Is there anything they did that was particularly helpful?Remember: now you’re the parent, making the same choices yourparents made while you were off dancing at the Broomstick Bounce.Let’s begin by looking at the telltale wake-up calls that becomefamiliar to every parent.Wake-Up CallsLittle John Bell was just five years old when we visited a farm, wherewe watched a cow and her calf in the pasture.“Momma,” John asked me as we stood there, “how did that baby cowget inside that mommy’s tummy?”“God made it in a special place,” I began, “and then that baby cowgrew and grew for a really long time before finally coming out one day.”I looked at the calf. “And there it is,” I concluded, satisfied I’d givenhim a good, spiritual, though admittedly vague, biological answer.“No, Momma,” John said, “I want to know how it got in there.”“Well,” I continued, “the mommy has an egg and the daddy has aseed, and when the two of them got together that made the baby calf.See the brown skin of that cow there and the white skin of that one overthere?” I said as I began giving him an introductory genetics lesson.John looked me straight in the eyes. “No, Momma,” he said, “I wantto know how that baby cow got into that momma cow.”There is a time for skirting around the issue and there is a time forstraightforwardness, and clearly we had passed from one to the other.“Do you really want to know?” I asked.“Yeah,” he said, “I want to know.”I had already taught John the body parts, so I said, “That daddy cowover there has a penis, and he put it inside the mommy cow’s vagina. Hereleased his seed, which traveled up into that mommy to meet her egg.That’s how it started forming the little baby calf inside her, the calf that’sright there in the field now.”He looked at the calf. “That’s really gross,” he said. He stood therequietly, staring intently at the calf, and then looked up at me. “Is thatwhat you and Dad had to do to get me?” he asked.I looked down at him. “Yeah.”“Yuck!” he exclaimed.15
I have yet to meet the parent of a fourth grader who is excited tobegin closing the chapter on childhood. There’s something inherentlysweet about a child’s innocence, when boys get more excited catchingfrogs and garter snakes than they do catching furtive glimpses of BritneySpears and thinking about garter belts.But as your child enters puberty, you’ll begin to notice things yourchild says or does—subtle things that have never before seemed importantto your child. During back-to-school shopping, your little boy suddenlycares what label his new shirt carries, when only the year before,he didn’t care whether his clothes were even washed. One day your littlegirl is playing house with the doll your mother handed down to you,and the next she declares she’s not interested in dolls, period. Oneevening you’re watching a football game with your son and you noticehis eyes lingering on the cheerleaders. He used to say “gross” when thecamera panned that bouncing bunch, but his reverent silence andintense stare tell you that “gross” is the last thing he’s thinking now.These moments wake us up to something that has already happened.It’s similar to opening the shades on a winter morning and seeing thatyour yard has been covered by an overnight arrival of snow. Sometimeduring the night, puberty arrived.The signs aren’t always obvious, of course. Your daughter isn’t goingto wake up one morning, sit down at breakfast, and say, “Hey, guess what?I hit puberty today!” Your son won’t gather everyone’s attention at dinnerand announce, “I just want you all to know that I like girls now.”Biological clocks don’t have alarms, and they aren’t that precise. Youhave to know your child well enough to realize that when he beginsmeticulously combing his hair after a lifetime of being perfectly contentwith the hairstyle of a haystack, you’ve begun entering this wonderful,new phase of life.You are right to pay attention to these wake-up calls, but don’t panic;they’re only wake-up calls. These changes were bound to happen and aresigns that your son or daughter is moving toward adulthood. The temporaryinsanity of adolescence may seem just around the corner, but it’sstill years away.Unfortunately, the world is making our job tougher every day.The Critical YearsBoth of us have worked with numerous families as they sought tomake the transition from pubescence to adolescence. The one constant16A Chicken’s Guide to Talking Turkey with Your Kids about Sex
Page 4: Chapter 1It’s a Tough Job,butSome
Page 7: face together the more intimate dis
Page 11: What have you shared with your kid

A Chicken's Guide to Talking Turkey with Your Kids about Sex ...

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?